UW–Madison’s Center for Healthy Minds Shares Positive Results from Study of Digital Wellbeing Training for Mexican Healthcare Providers

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Center for Healthy Minds (CHM) and AtentaMente, a group in Mexico that specializes in mental and socio-emotional training, have released evidence that a scalable, digital wellbeing training can improve health care provider mental health and wellbeing. The study is one of the first large-scale randomized controlled trials of a wellbeing program for health care providers and was published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

The idea for the study came about during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when health care providers and systems faced extreme stress. In Mexico, there was already a shortage of health care providers, who often worked multiple jobs for low pay. “A few months into the pandemic, it became evident that healthcare providers were taking a big toll on their lives to protect us. We felt compelled to offer whatever we had to help them better cope with the situation, protecting their mental health and wellbeing,” said Leandro Chernicoff, Co-founder and Academic Research Director of AtentaMente.

Even now, healthcare providers around the globe continue to deal with high stress, and in some places this has led to burnout, job loss and even suicide. This has a negative impact not just on their own wellbeing, but also on the quality of care they provide and on the economy. A 2023 study estimated that burnout costs the U.S. healthcare system at least $4.6 billion each year. In low and middle-income countries like Mexico, having a strong healthcare system is crucial for both social and economic development. However, few studies have tested programs aimed at improving health care provider wellbeing.

The study, which started in 2023, involved over 2,300 health care providers, across seven Mexican states, and included urban and rural areas. Participants were randomly split into two groups: one group received a new wellbeing program called the Integrated Stress Toolbox for Healthcare Providers (ISTH), and the other control group did not receive a program. The goal of ISTH was to provide a mental health training that could easily be implemented and scaled by AtentaMente, which already provides trainings in various sectors across Latin America, and Healthy Minds Innovations, an affiliated non-profit of CHM that produced the Healthy Minds Program (HMP), an award-winning, free, smartphone-based wellbeing training.

“Prior research conducted by the Center has found that the HMP is highly effective in reducing psychological distress and increasing character strengths such as social connection, self-compassion, and mindfulness, even during a global pandemic in high-stress occupations like education,” said Dr. Matthew Hirshberg, a Research Assistant Professor at CHM and lead researcher on this project. Hirshberg also explained that in internal AtentaMente program evaluations, they saw evidence of reduced stress and improved wellbeing following the program.

For this study, the ISTH program lasted 12 weeks and consisted of two-hour live Zoom sessions every week for the first eight weeks, with recorded sessions available for those unable to attend live. Enriching HMP content was also offered during these weeks. After the first eight weeks, there were four weeks of HMP-only content. In the twelfth week of the program, a final two-hour Zoom session was also held, and was recorded for those who weren’t able to attend live. All of the content was in Spanish and was designed and taught by Mexican health care providers with lived experiences.

The results showed that both the ISTH and control groups reported less distress during the first few weeks. However, after the fourth week, the ISTH group showed a much bigger drop in distress, while the control group’s distress levels stayed the same. During the six months following the program, the ISTH group’s distress levels continued to drop, while the control group’s rose slightly. In addition, the ISTH group showed improvements in skills like awareness, connection, insight and purpose, and that increases in these skills may be a pathway through which distress was later decreased. Burnout was reduced as well.

The researchers hope that these results help demonstrate the idea that wellbeing is a skill that can be learned, and that solutions like this could help health care providers around the world. “Building skills like awareness, connection, insight and purpose can not only aid with health care provider wellbeing, but could also lead to more empathy and compassion on teams and for patients,” says Hirshberg. The team believes that teaching wellbeing should be a key part of medical education and professional development. Future research could look at how these programs affect other aspects of health care provider lives, like their personal healthcare use, work attendance, career paths and the care they give to patients.

This study was funded by Templeton World Charity Foundation.

By Heather Harris